For Farmworker Justice, there’s unfortunately no shortage of examples of mistreatment of the people who harvest our fruits and vegetables to illustrate the need to continue fighting for farmworkers’ rights. Our mission is to empower agricultural workers to implement lasting solutions to systemic abuses. We focus on labor rights, immigration policy, health, occupational safety and access to justice.

Last month, Farmworker Justice and Florida Legal Services filed a lawsuit in Florida on behalf of two farmworkers who were among the victims of human trafficking and labor violations while working for a potato grower in Hastings, Florida. The complaint alleges that a farm labor contractor took workers to a squalid, isolated labor camp, where they were supplied with decrepit housing, illegal drugs, and food, for which the workers were loaned money at 100 percent interest. Money was taken from their weekly wages to pay for their rent, food, drugs, and interest, resulting in debts which bound them to their labor contractor.

For decades, agricultural workers have suffered theft of wages and other abuses related to their jobs. As in the case in Hastings, Farmworker Justice’s litigation team brings cases aimed at ending employers' systemic deprivations of workers' rights. Abuses associated with labor contractors are widespread. Many farm operators – or “growers” – hope to escape responsibility as “employers” under labor law and immigration law by claiming that their farmworkers are employed solely by the labor contractor. But everyone needs to be held accountable. That’s why Farmworker Justice works with attorneys and other public-interest organizations throughout the country to bring lawsuits to hold the grower jointly responsible with the labor contractor for complying with the minimum wage and other employment laws. We also advocate at the Department of Labor for greater use of the joint employer concept in its wage-hour enforcement.

For what feels like decades, reporters, pundits, and ideologues, mostly on the right, but some on the left, have lauded Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for his wit, pointed oral argument questioning and allegedly brilliant writing. But those plaudits, in light of the justice’s performances during oral argument in cases challenging health care reform and Arizona’s racial profiling law, are wobbly at best, bordering on delusional.

In reality Scalia increasingly has difficulty, as The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank recently noted, containing his rabid partisanship. It’s unbecoming. During the Affordable Care Act oral argument it appeared, at times, that his only preparation involved reading right-wing blogs railing about the slippery slope to regulations mandating purchases of broccoli and gym memberships. At oral argument in Arizona v. U.S., regarding challenges to several portions of the state’s anti-immigrant law, Scalia “left no doubt from the start that he was a champion of the Arizona crackdown and that he would verbally lacerate anybody who felt otherwise,” Mibank wrote.

Milbank continued, “Scalia’s tart tongue has been a fixture on the bench for years, but as the justices venture this year into highly political areas such as health-care reform and immigration, the divisive and pugilistic style of the senior associate justice is very much defining the public image of the Roberts Court.”

And it’s not a flattering image. Not only does Scalia come off as a ringleader of right-wing hacks in robes, he increasingly comes off as clueless or heartless. During the health care oral argument, questions from Scalia and some of the other right-wing justices prompted a string of commentators to question whether the justices understood the health care insurance market.

For the past two years, the national debate over police involvement in immigration enforcement has focused on Arizona Senate Bill 1070. When it was first enacted, SB 1070 was widely criticized for the broad discretion it allowed Arizona police to question people about their legal status. Much of this criticism focused on the problem of immigrant racial profiling. Opponents of the bill argued that it opened the door for the indiscriminate interrogation of anyone who looks like an unauthorized migrant.

Even though these complaints figured prominently in the public debate over SB 1070, it is rather telling that they have dropped out of the legal arguments that have been marshaled against the bill. One reason for this curious situation is that complaints about racial profiling and selective enforcement have historically been framed as violations of Fourth Amendment rights. But it also so happens that the legal challenge against SB 1070 is being led by the Department of Justice which, for obvious reasons, is not interested in setting legal precedents that would limit the search and seizure power of the police. The Supreme Court, which is currently deliberating over the DOJ's lawsuit against SB 1070, also has a history of favoring the discretionary powers of law enforcement over Fourth Amendment considerations.

It is important to keep this context in mind when evaluating the legal arguments that are being levied against SB 1070. The DOJ is advancing a finely pitched argument which takes issue with the law making powers of local governments but not the search and seizure practices of law enforcement. It is also bears noting that the DOJ is not opposing local immigration laws on principle. The DOJ supported Arizona's employer sanctions law (penalizing businesses that hire unauthorized migrants) which was subsequently upheld by the 9th Circuit and Supreme Court. The federal government also doesn't seem to be opposed, on principle, to the involvement of police in enforcing federal immigration laws. The Obama administration has actually given state and local police new opportunities to enforce immigration laws. It has only taken issue with local enforcement practices that operate outside of the federal-local enforcement arrangements that have already been authorized by federal law.

I was at Wednesday’s Supreme Court argument in Arizona v. United States, observing with particular interest because I am counsel in the separate civil rights coalition challenge to S.B. 1070 (and challenges to the five copycat state laws that were enacted in 2011). I’d urge those who are following this case to pay attention to the following issues, which based on the accounts I’ve seen so far, appear to be underreported :

First, while much of the argument revolved around Section 2(B), the “show me your papers” provision of S.B. 1070, the discussion seemed to imagine a law quite different from the one the state legislature actually passed. S.B. 1070 itself directs state and local police to detain individuals for investigation and determination of their immigration status, but during the argument, several exchanges construed the section as merely serving to notify the federal government of an individual who was otherwise properly detained. Prognostication around the argument fails to factor in this significant retreat from the plain language of the statute.

Second, this has always been a case about discrimination, harassment and racial profiling. It is true that there is no separate legal claim based on the Equal Protection Clause in the federal government’s case (although there is one in the civil rights coalition’s case). But it is equally true that from its inception, S.B. 1070 has been synonymous with racial profiling, and for good reason – as law enforcement officials from around the country have repeatedly confirmed, and as our clients’ experiences demonstrate.

By Gabriel J. Chin and Marc L. Miller. Chin is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, and Miller is Vice Dean and Bilby Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law. See “SB1070 in the Supreme Court,” their pre-oral argument analysis for ACSblog.

The argument in the SB1070 case went 20 minutes over its scheduled hour. Most of the justices' questions addressed Section 2, which requires local police to investigate the immigration status of anyone stopped by the police who they suspected of being undocumented.

Justices Kennedy and Scalia each asked the fundamental question of whether “a state must accept within its borders a person who is illegally present under federal law.” Paul Clement answered no, frankly claiming for the states the powers of deportation and border control.

Justice Scalia agreed.

This question is at the heart of the case. All provisions of SB1070 are roundabout ways of forcing undocumented aliens to leave. If Arizona has direct regulatory authority over illegal immigration, they need not operate indirectly; Arizona should just pass a law requiring the undocumented to leave, punishing them if they refuse.

Arizona did not do this because it doubts it has that power. Such a claim would be at odds with the traditional approach, as represented, for example, by Chief Justice Burger, joined by Justices White, Rehnquist & O’Connor dissenting in Plyler v. Doe,who wrote: “A state has no power to prevent unlawful immigration, and no power to deport illegal aliens; those powers are reserved exclusively to Congress and the Executive.”

But if states do not have the power to regulate directly, then, as Mr. Clement recognized when answering this question, their claim to be able to do so indirectly is undermined.

In the modern electronic glow that seeks to cast major cases into six word headlines and sound bites, many commentators have observed that the justices supported Section 2. It was common ground among the justices and counsel that an officer acting on her own (rather than by statutory mandate) may question a suspect about immigration status, at least so long as it does not prolong a detention.

But looking at the exchanges between the Justices and the advocates, a more nuanced picture emerges.